Damian Thompson is Editor of Telegraph Blogs and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He was once described by The Church Times as a "blood-crazed ferret". He is on Twitter as HolySmoke. His latest book is The Fix: How addiction is taking over your world. He also writes about classical music for The Spectator.

A witchcraft scandal on our doorstep

A 15-year-old boy is tortured to death for witchcraft. In London. In 2010. And the private reaction of police and social workers? Quiet despair. It’s happened before and will happen again.

The boy, Kristy Bamu, was hit in the mouth with a hammer, had his ear twisted with pliers, had bottles smashed over his head, and was finally drowned in the bath by his sister, Magalie, and her boyfriend, Eric Bikubi.

The Metropolitan Police waited until after the end of the court case to warn us that children are being abused and murdered in increasing numbers in Britain because their African relatives think they are “spirit children” – that is, witches.

Also, children’s charities and campaigners “urged communities to report abuse and said social workers must be firmer in confronting abuse in immigrant groups”.

Let’s deconstruct that. Campaigners are making this appeal because African communities in Britain have been too slow to report this abuse. And social workers have soft-pedalled on the subject, despite the shameful record of their colleagues in the case of Victoria Climbié, an eight-year-old girl from the Ivory Coast who was tortured to death in 2000 by family members who believed she was possessed by the devil.

Victoria’s death could have been avoided if Brent and Haringey social services hadn’t turned a PC blind eye to her abuse. Victoria’s senior social worker, Carole Baptiste, was accused of “spending her time talking about God and her experiences as a black woman, rather than looking after the interests of the vulnerable”. She was found guilty by magistrates of failing to help the public inquiry.

A contact working in this field told me yesterday: “Social workers from African backgrounds are scared. First, because they may have residual beliefs about witches themselves. Second, because they don’t want to confront church pastors who make a fortune out of 'exorcising’ children – often at the request of their parents.”

The Climbié and Bamu cases were atypical because they involved spectacular violence. But the charity Trust for London is talking nonsense when it says that “no faith or culture promotes cruelty to children”. In 2009, the African journalist Sorious Samura made a World Service programme about the slaughter of “witches” in Ghana. He walked up one hill in which, he reckoned, the bodies of tens of thousands of “spirit children” were buried.

An African organisation, Afrikids – one of The Daily Telegraph’s charity appeal partners – is trying to challenge this mentality. But it’s not easy, when the parents of a disabled or “strange” child believe it will murder the rest of the family. Samura asked the pupils of a Ghanaian primary school about “spirit children”. Most of them thought they should be killed.
Afrikids provides shelter for mothers who have run away with their child rather than allow the local “concoction man” to administer the appropriate poison – a daily occurrence in parts of Africa. Will it soon have to do the same in London?

Prof Jean La Fontaine is the anthropologist who exploded the myth of satanic ritual abuse. She’s based at Inform, Britain’s foremost academic cult-watching body, and certainly doesn’t think the abuse of “spirit children” in Britain is a myth. She is horrified by the rich African pastors who encourage these crimes, and adds: “We do not hear Christian churches raising their voices against the belief in child witches.”

Good point. I don’t care if these Pentecostal congregations are thriving, and provide role models for black youths. If we can get worked up about secularists banning prayers, or the Islamist infiltration of mosques, why not this unspeakable scandal?

With friends like Mehdi Hasan…

Jenny Tonge predicts, with lip-smacking relish, that the day will come when Israel no longer exists, and finally Nick Clegg forces her out of the Lib Dems – though the old bat remains in the Lords. No tears are shed among the commentariat, with one exception. Mehdi Hasan of the New Statesman sympathises with Baroness Tonge because he, too, knows what it’s like to be caught on tape in an unguarded moment. Here’s Mehdi at an Islamic conference in 2009: “Once we lose the moral high ground we are no different from the non-Muslims; from the rest of those human beings who lead their lives as animals…” If you haven’t seen it, Jenny, it’s on YouTube. Enjoy!

New Little Pony falls at the first

How sad to learn that My Little Pony, the cartoon series based on the much-loved toys, has provoked a nasty row. “Bronies” – members of the adult, mostly male, fan base for the pony models – are distressed that Derpy, an adorably slow-witted character, has been given a new voice to make her seem “less mentally challenged”. Hasbro, makers of the show, didn’t want to seem to be mocking the disabled – but the Bronies think they’re reducing “diversity” with the changed voice.

Who can guide us through this ethical minefield? If only there were a senior Anglican bishop in the London area who was a secret Brony, dressing his toy animals in the academic dress corresponding to his honorary doctorates. But I must shut up now, because I’ve already said too much…

Breitbart didn’t just mock thin-skinned liberals. He printed stories that embarrassed the hell out of them. It was thanks to him that allegations of sexual assault in the Occupy Wall Street “community” became common knowledge. Liberal activists dislike stories that don’t fit the script; this one didn’t, any more than Breitbart’s exposure of the Democrat politician Anthony Weiner as a sex pest. Such revelations were “inappropriate”, as they say in the blue states. Now there won’t be any more of them, at least from that quarter. We can go back to the script, in which only Republicans are sexual predators.

Phishing season at Westminster

Lord James of Blackheath, a Tory life peer, isn’t taken very seriously in the Upper Chamber, alas. In 2010 he revealed to his fellow peers that a shadowy “Foundation X” had emailed him, offering to invest billions in the British economy. Now he’s told them that a descendant of “the emperors of Indo-China” has been in touch, seeking to transfer part of his $36 trillion fortune to a British bank.

It’s disgraceful, the way phishing emails target gullible politicians. Ed Miliband, for example. “Every time a 'senior Nigerian official’ wrote to him with a 'top secret’ proposal he’d get all excited,” sighs my Labour mole. “So now we delete the emails first. But for God’s sake don’t tell him.”